Supervision

supervision

The Graduate Supervision Handbook will help you get the most out of the supervisor-graduate student relationship at Western. It provides in-depth advice on roles and responsibilities, communications, learning styles, time management, and many other issues.

Preface  

The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies is occasionally asked to intervene in situations where a graduate student and supervisor have come into unresolvable conflict. In such situations, it can sometimes be very difficult to arrange matters so that the student can complete his or her program of study with a new supervisor. Often this is because the rights and responsibilities of the student and the original supervisor have never been completely defined, and each party may have different expectations or assumptions of what the rights and responsibilities are. For example, in some disciplines, the supervisor may have provided considerable input into the conception, design and conduct of the student's research and would normally expect to publish the work with the student. In such cases, if the student and the supervisor come into unresolvable conflict and a new supervisor is appointed, how is the ownership of intellectual property established, and does the student have the right to continue the research based upon the supervisor's original idea? Similarly, in some disciplines, the supervisor provides financial support to the student from his or her research grant. In such cases, if the student and the supervisor come into unresolvable conflict and a new supervisor has to be appointed, what are the student's rights to financial support and where does the financial liability reside?

This document has been prepared in an attempt to provide principles and guidelines, which, if understood by both the student and supervisor at the start of the student-supervisor relationship, may help prevent break down of the relationship, or prevent the development of unresolvable situations if the relationship does break down. The document also attempts to provide guidance on the rights and responsibilities of the student, supervisor, and the graduate program in the event that the relationship between the student and the supervisor has broken down irretrievably. The document does not attempt to provide guidance for resolution of the conflict that has developed between student and supervisor, nor is it relevant to situations where the graduate program has determined that a student's academic performance is sufficiently inadequate that the student must withdraw because of lack of progress.

A. Principles

B. Guidelines

C. Resources for Supervisors